Kaniva Tonga News

Address:
Country: Tonga
Contact: Kalino Latu, Editor - kalino.k.latu@gmail.com
Email: kanivatonganz@gmail.com
Phone: +676 021 174 3521
Website: https://kanivatonga.co.nz/

Categories: Online Media

Kaniva is Tongan for the Milky Way that rises over the Pacific every night. Our ancestors used the stars in the Milky Way to navigate across the ocean and to tell them when to fish and when to plant certain crops. Our media and entertainment service provides the same type of vital information for today’s generation. Like the Milky Way our aim is to be watchful, vigilant and to keep shining in the sky over the people of Tonga – wherever in the world they are.

Executive Summary

Kaniva News was established in New Zealand in 2009 by its founder, Kalino Lātū. It is read from Sydney to Salt Lake City, providing a service that brings the Tongan diaspora together, spreads ideas and influences how Tongans in the kingdom and in New Zealand see themselves and their future as a diasporic people firmly rooted in their own culture.

Kaniva News is a unique news service providing a bilingual coverage of Tongan affairs in Tongan and English. It operates as part of the Ta’angafonua Trust and serves as an outlet and representative of the Trusts’ mission of sustaining, strengthening and preserving Tongan culture, heritage and language by covering events in the global population through its bilingual news service. A number of activities within the broader framework of the Trust also support Kaniva News.

Tongans are among the most educationally aspirational people on earth and have begun to have a distinct impact on the country’s political scene as they enter parliament and government ministries.

Younger Tongans are energetic and socially mobile and complement Kaniva’s older audience of first generation of Tonga settlers in New Zealand.

Reliability/Bilingualism and Memberships

With its reach into the Tongan diaspora, as a news service whose reports are frequently quoted by the local, regional and international media and which is regarded as a reliable and trusted source of information, Kaniva News should, on the face of it, be a profitable business.

Kaniva News and Entertainment is an Auckland-based Tongan news and entertainment services that provides a unique bilingual news, cultural and musical service in Tongan and English using digital print, video, performance and audio.

Access to our website is free for about 72 hrs before the readers are required to create membership accounts to get access to our stories. We are the only Tonga/English bilingual news service in New Zealand and the world.

We are the only media outlet which write stories in English and translates them into Tongan. The English version is published at the top of the page with the Tongan version is published underneath.

Writing our stories in Tongan confirms our endeavour to enlighten, inform and entertain Tongans who are not English literate while preserving and sustaining our Tongan language at the same time.

Our news and entertainment activities are focussed on the Tongan community. Our website is full of stories and information that show our vital role in supporting Tongan communities and maintaining their links with the kingdom, culture, human rights, morality, tradition, ethics, religion and families.

We value our Tongan culture, practices and customs. When covering news with links to Tongan customs and practices we explain how they were implemented to our non-Tongan readers in both English and Tongan.

In doing so it helps non-Tongan readers, or younger members of the community who may prefer to read in English, understand our kingdom’s customs.